Weapon fuses against debris.

[WelshZeCorgi]

So for missiles like the harpoon, or even A/A missiles and SAM missiles, do they have some sort of safe guard against flying through debris? 

 

Watching missiles get rippled off and watching 10-20 anti-ship missiles attack a group, it made me wonder if an exploding harpoon could accidently set off another harpoon behind it, either through the Shockwave of the warhead going off or by throwing so much debris into the air that the following missiles' fuses trip cause it hit a piece of debris before hitting the target, either decreasing or neutralizing its effectiveness. 

 

If there are safeguards, is it true for all missiles like SAM and AA? 

[Rick50]

 

Er... well... I don't think so. Not specifically debris.  I think generally, if you are talking about anti-ship missiles, or gravity bombs, the fuzes are designed to only work when they encounter the conditions of hitting something fairly solid, meaning the high deceleration of hitting a ship's hull, dry ground, or something solid. I'm not talking about delays or prox fuzes though. But that if it's meant to destroy a ship hull, it should only activate if actually hitting something roughly as solid as a ship's hull, not tree branches on a tiny island. I don't think the designers are very concerned about debris from other explosions, but rather about safety: what if it misses intended target, it ought to not explode then if it's wildly different than a ship hull. 

 

Also consider that an anti-ship missile is generally not intended to blow up on contact with the outside of the hull, but rather penetrate through the hull and wait to be int eh middle of the vulnerable decks, with pipes, power cables, data lines, radios, petroleum lines and such. I dont' believe designers think that debris from earlier hits is a significant issue to design for.

 

As for AAM's and SAM's, I don't really know. Some seem to use short range RF signals, I think one even uses laser rangefinding. I don't think the fuze system does target discrimination in those, it's up to the SAM operator, the fighter pilot, the guidance/tracking system to select or reject targets. I know the 9X has the ability to reject some flares as decoys and maintain lock on the (presumably) enemy jet. And the Amraam likely has similar decoy rejection abilities too for ECM and chaff, but I've no idea how well or poorly it might handle that.

 

A lot of fuze types are meant more to help prevent warhead detonation when too close to the "shooter". In army weapons for instance, there's usually an "arming distance", where for a set distance/time, the fuze isn't even actually fully armed. Meaning, if you accidentally fire your 40mm grenade 10 feet (3m) in front of you, it won't detonate at all. That's all about safety in "unintentional discharges", and/or overzealous gunners. 

[GGTharos]

On 5/23/2021 at 2:08 PM, WelshZeCorgi said:

If there are safeguards, is it true for all missiles like SAM and AA? 

 

Your safeguards are impact direction and impact timing, as well as the fact that the affected zone is small in area and in time - so, missile spacing in AZ and time.

As well, these are small flying vehicles so their chances of being hit by debris is relatively small.

Edited May 28, 2021 by GGTharos